BERLIN, June 20 The north-west German state of
Lower Saxony risked stoking tensions with Bavaria over energy
policy on Saturday by urging companies from the southern region
to move north to secure stable power supplies.

Bavaria has sparked frustration in Lower Saxony by opposing
power lines planned to carry electricity from the breezy north
to the industrial heartland in the south.

In a light-hearted, half-page advertisement in Bavaria’s
Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, Lower Saxony’s Economy Minister
Olaf Lies said power-hungry companies in the south such as
Siemens and BMW should just relocate.

“If the electricity won’t come to you, simply come to the
electricity. Move your company direct to the source of power: to
the state with energy, to Lower Saxony,” he wrote.

Bowing to public protests, Bavarian premier Horst Seehofer
has withdrawn support for the new power lines and suggested
Bavaria could instead build up its gas-fired power capacity for
the time when nuclear plants in the south are switched off in
2022 — a deadline set after Japan’s 2011 Fukushima disaster.

The power lines are, however, seen as crucial for Germany’s
switch away from fossil fuels and nuclear power towards
renewable sources and vital to avoid bottlenecks and electricity
shortages.

Should the lines not be built, southern companies could be
forced to pay more for electricity than firms in the north,
Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel has warned.

Bavaria clashed with the national government on Friday by
opposing plans to locate one of four interim storage sites for
nuclear waste in the southern state.

(Reporting by Caroline Copley; Editing by Mark Potter)